


uncertainty principle

by akc



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-17 06:14:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17554931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akc/pseuds/akc
Summary: In the silence, Akira asks his ceiling why things turned out this way. His ceiling does not answer.





	uncertainty principle

**Author's Note:**

> goro and akira are childhood friends, and some things change but some do not.

**the quark, the gluon**

Akira is seven years old, and has just been told that a boy has moved in next door. He is excited.

There is nobody else his age in this neighborhood, and he is an only child. It’s unfortunate, because it’s a relatively small town substantially far away from cities where there would be plenty of people his age. He only sees other kids at school.

And besides that, the boy is moving in _next door—_ not down the street, not a block away. Right next door.

“I’ve heard that he’s shy,” his mother tells him, but her voice twists a strange way when she says it. She bends down to Akira’s height. “So just be patient.”

And patient Akira is. He waits and waits and waits for the boy to be outside, but never sees him, not once.  It’s been three weeks since he has apparently moved in, and still has yet to be seen.

 _He must be really shy,_ Akira thinks at seven years old, unknowing. It’s all right that he is unknowing, though; he shouldn’t have to. He continues to wait nevertheless.

The people next door were very reserved. It was only a lady and a man that lived there prior to this boy that has supposedly moved in. The only time Akira ever saw either of them outside was when the man left for work, probably, in the morning, and then when he came home at night. Once he saw the lady get mail.

Other than that—nothing.

“Are you _sure_ he moved in?” Akira asks one morning over breakfast, poking his food. He spent the night before debating with himself whether or not this boy actually exists or if it was some sort of off-kilter joke the town is playing on him. Which, admittedly, is quite a distressing thing for a seven year old to think.

“Yes,” his mother says, pouring herself a glass of juice. “He’s out there right now.”

Akira springs out of his seat and to the window.

Sure enough, there is a boy outside. He’s by the curb, kneeling down and looking at something on the ground. His back is to Akira; it is difficult to make out his physical features other than his small-ness.

“Can I go outside?” he asks, turning around to face his mom. He bounces up and down on his heels, understandably eager.

“Sure,” his mother replies. She places a plate in the drying rack. “Be careful, and try not to raise your voice.”

Akira nods more than once and hurries out the door. He doesn’t think much of his mother’s request to not _raise his voice._ That piece of advice given to a seven year old doesn’t carry much weight.

He draws in a deep, nervous breath that has appeared out of nowhere and walks over to the boy, who is still bent down looking at the ground.

“What’re you looking at?” Akira asks.

The boy jumps, nearly falls over at the sound of Akira’s voice. He turns his head and looks up.

The first thing that jumps out to Akira are his eyes. They are a strange maroon color, deep and nearly rosy, tired and anxious looking. His hair stops just near his ears, not out of the ordinary, nothing particular about it. He’s scrawny, too—dressed in a huge t-shirt and jeans that are much too big for him.

Akira takes a step back. “What were you looking at?” he asks again, remembering boundaries and the concept of giving space.

The boy doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, looking from Akira to the ground and back up. “There was a big ant,” he finally says, simply.

Akira’s eyes widen. “A big ant!” he half-shouts, and the boy flinches again. “Can I see it?”

“I lost it,” the boy says solemnly. He’s still squatting, one hand balancing himself up by resting on the curb. “Who are you?”

It hadn’t occurred to Akira to introduce himself. His mind is racing with excitement, too many interesting and new things at once. He toes the ground and says, “I live next door. My name is… Akira. I’m the only other kid that lives in the neighborhood.”

He goes for his given name right off the bat.

“Oh,” the boy says quietly. “Um… it’s nice to meet you. I’m Goro.” He says the name like he’s unsure whether or not it is really his.

“Hi, Goro.” Akira swings his arms, thinking of something to say next. It’s already hard to keep up a conversation with Goro. He doesn’t have much to say, it seems, and acts as though he has never spoken to someone the same age as he is. His voice is soft and almost wobbly.

“Do you want to play?” Akira finally asks.

“Play?”

A frown. “Play. You know, like with toys and stuff? We can go to the park. I gotta ask my mom first though.”

“Oh,” Goro says. “I don’t own any toys.”

Akira tilts his head. His frown deepens. “None?”

“Nope.”

He considers this fact for a moment. “Well, you can have one of mine. Um… I have a lot, I think.”

Goro makes a sound that sounds like something akin to a gasp, but not quite. More subdued, less of an interjection than it could be. His eyes have big stars in them. “Really?”

“Sure. I’ll ask my mom if I can go to the park and I’ll bring some stuff with me.” Pause. “If you wanna go.”

“I wanna go,” Goro says quickly, copying the _wanna._

“I’ll be right back!” Akira puts his hands on his hips. He’s been watching a lot of superhero movies lately and they all put their hands on their hips whenever something heroic is about to happen and Akira has taken up the habit. “Aren’t you gonna ask your parents?”

“They don’t care what I do.”

Akira frowns again. It’s more than he is used to doing. “Why?”

“They just don’t,” Goro says, speaking to the ground now, dragging his finger along the blacktop. A heavy beat of silence passes before Akira retreats to his house.

He dashes upstairs, putting his favorite toys in a drawstring bag and slinging it over his shoulder. His mother tells him it’s fine to go to the park, she says another _be careful._ It’s not like she’s letting him go there on his own, of course; she can see the park from the kitchen table through the front window. It’s just across the street and small enough for her to see the entirety of it.

Akira returns to Goro, who is now sitting on the curb, looking down the street at nothing in particular. He doesn’t seem to notice Akira approaching him until he coughs a little bit, not wanting to scare him again.

Goro flinches anyway. “Hi,” he says.

“Hi,” Akira echoes. “I brought toys. You can choose the one you want at the park.”

“Are you really sure I can have one?”

“Uh huh. I have a lot, and you don’t have any, so it’s fair… I think.” Is it fair? Akira thinks maybe he should let Goro keep two, or three. Or four. Even if they’re his favorite toys he feels bad that he has nothing to play with. Akira can’t imagine how he spends his time—looking at more bugs? He probably watches television.

They cross the street to the park. Akira puts his bag on the ground and takes out a wide variety of toys, from soft plush animals to action figures to tiny cars and so on, laying them out like a merchant would. He lets Goro take whatever he wants.

They stay at the park until sunset. By then their noses and cheeks and ears are red with sunburn; Akira’s head hurts from laughing so much. Their jeans are covered in grass stains and hands are browned from dirt.

As it turns out, they will be going to different schools. Akira promises that they can do something every day if Goro wants to, and then after school every day when it is autumn.

“Promise?” Goro asks. He’s clutching a bunch of toys in his arms: an action figure, a stuffed bear, and a small bag of marbles that Akira accidentally took along with him.

“Pinky promise,” Akira says. He holds out his pinky.

They shake.

* * *

**the proton, the neutron**

It gets cold fast.

In October the temperature drops significantly. When Akira and Goro go to the park after school—and they haven’t missed a single day—Goro only wears a thin jacket over whatever clothes he has underneath. He shivers when the wind picks up but says he’s fine, holds his arms tight against his chest but says it’s all right.

Akira gives him a warmer coat after a few days because he can’t stand it.

“For when it’s winter,” he explains, and that’s that.

As it turns out, though, Goro does not stay in Akira’s little town until it is winter. In the beginning of November he leaves, suddenly, led into a car with a woman in a pink sweater delicately putting her hand on his back. Akira watches him leave from his bedroom window, eyes wide and hands clenching at his jeans in anger and sadness and all of the things in between.

They didn’t say goodbye to one another. The last thing they had said to one another was “see you tomorrow.” Goro didn’t seem like he was lying when he said that so he must have not known he was moving. Is it even moving? His parents hadn’t gone with him. His parents who don’t care about what he does.

Akira doesn’t understand.

“How come Goro moved away but his parents stayed here?” Akira asks over dinner one night. The wind thrashes loudly outside and makes Akira jump every now and then. It makes him think of when he met Goro and how he was so frightened by everything.

“I’m not sure,” his father says in his fondest lying voice, which made it clear that he did know. Akira didn’t ask further, though, because he knew it was something he wouldn’t understand at seven years old nor was it something he wanted to understand. Shouldn’t have to understand.

A few days after he left, it dawned on Akira that perhaps something had happened to Goro. He couldn’t quite imagine what it was specifically but was almost positive that it was something… significant.

As it had been getting colder, Akira noticed changes in Goro. He became even quieter than he was when they had first met each other. At times he would stop playing with Akira and drop his toys to the ground and stare at the shapes they drew in the dirt for long minutes at a time. He would not speak, he would not answer questions, would not move. Another time he launched the action figure he was holding across the park and into the bushes without warning and then burst into tears.

“They don’t love me,” he had said one evening. They were laying in the park on a huge leaf pile, staring at the clouds.

“Who?” Akira asked.

“Everyone,” Goro said. His voice was quiet. “Everyone doesn’t love me.”

Akira was seven and he’d felt his heart shatter for the first time.

It was a different type of shattering than the other ones he felt later in life. In middle school he asked a girl to a dance and was rejected in front of everyone. It hurt. He cried in the bathroom, even, and felt even more shame when he told his parents and they called him a baby.

But it was nothing compared to how he felt after Goro had said that to him. Akira clung to his mother that night and cried for Goro, cried for his good heart and his smart mind and interesting ideas and funny voices he made when they played together. He didn’t understand.

He doesn't ever hear again from Goro once he moves away. Akira doesn't know where he lives and can't find out, either. For a while he checks the mailbox after school each day until he realizes he isn't going to get any letters.

Soon he stops trying.

He always thinks about Goro, though. He wonders where he was and how he is doing and how he looks. Wonders if he was alive. They were each other’s only friend, even if it was for a short time. Akira once snuck out of his room in the summer because Goro promised to teach him about constellations. He gave him toys, he gave him dumb candies and drew ugly looking monsters on his hands and named them stupid things. It was such a quiet night.

Akira couldn’t ever forget Goro.

* * *

**the electrons**

It’s funny the way things work out.

A few days after he is put on probation and moved to Yongenjaya, Akira hears the name Akechi Goro while he is walking home. _Goro. Goro._

Akira has lived in the same small town all his life. He has never heard of this Akechi Goro despite his apparent popularity in Shibuya and the surrounding areas. A Google search while he eats dinner immediately tells him that this his Goro. _The_ Goro.

They reunite while Akira is on his social studies trip. Or rather—not so much as reunite, because Akira assumed they would never see one another again.

There isn’t a proper word to explain what it felt like, much less what it was, exactly.

They see each other in the hallway. Akira stands with his friends; Goro turns to them to say something and freezes, tilts his head, whispers Akira’s name like a lullaby. Akira whispers Goro’s name. The hallway disappears and they are suddenly the only two people in the entire universe, looking at one another with eyes full of luz opal. Far away, Fate sits upright and watches.

They go back to Leblanc and Akira makes him coffee.

“This place was recommended to me by a coworker but I haven’t had time to come around,” Goro says, holding the coffee cup up to his lips. He holds his pinky finger out when he drinks. “It must be destiny, don’t you think?”

Akira nods and sits at the booth with Goro, facing him. “Something like that, yeah.” He looks into his coffee cup, wondering if he could manifest tea leaves at the bottom by pure will.

Goro’s eyes are not the same as they were when he was little. They have nothing in them; there is not even sadness. It makes Akira’s stomach churn.

“You’re good at making coffee,” Goro says, clearly looking to move the conversation along. Akira looks up from his cup and smiles. He hopes Goro doesn’t notice how the side of his lip wobbles.

“Thanks,” he says, waving his hand dismissively. “I’m happy you like it.”

Something feels off—something about the way Goro speaks now and how it is covered in artificial sweetener. Akira knows that people change when they grow up, but it is almost as though there’s a piece missing inside of him that was there before. He is all brick walls and concrete fillings and it wasn’t like that when they lived next door to one another.

Perhaps comparing Goro to his younger self isn’t the right move.

“I missed you,” Akira blurts. And he really did say this without intending to—his own words shock him so much he has to resist the urge to cover his mouth.

For a moment, there is something in Goro’s face. Akira can’t pin what it is. Sadness, perhaps. “I missed you,” he whispers in reply, and it is harrowingly honest.

Akira wants to cry. He drinks his coffee instead, but it doesn’t help very much, so he excuses himself to the bathroom.

And he sits on the ground next to the sink and cries and cries. This is not Goro. This is someone else; this person is full of emptiness so profound it has swallowed him whole. Emptiness disguised as cordiality.

After a moment he exits the bathroom. He and Goro exchange phone numbers and promise to spend time together on the weekend.

They do. They spend time together the next weekend as well, and then the one after that and so on and so forth. They discuss politics, sometimes, and other times play board games. Akira makes him coffee every time and Goro tells him about his day and sometimes buys food for Akira. It has the same feeling as when they played in the park together, but Akira feels younger than seven and Goro acts older than twenty.

Sometimes time is too much for a person to handle.

* * *

**the atomic spin**

One summer night, Goro stays late.

Akira invites him to the attic to watch a movie. They’d done it before; one evening Goro had brought a movie and vaguely suggested they watch and so they did. It became an occasion every few days.

As usual, Akira drags out the uncomfortable chairs and positions them in front of the television. He throws a blanket over them in a pathetic attempt to make them more comfortable, but it does next to nothing. Goro takes out sushi from a bag he brought along and they share it.

They watch the movie and sit in silence once it is finished. It had a sad ending.

It had a sad ending.

More than that, it was very long. The trains have stopped running by the time it’s over. Akira obviously offers to let Goro stay overnight _(You can even sleep on the bed, I’ll sleep on the couch)_ , and Goro obviously accepts _(Does this constitute as a sleepover? I’ve never had one before)_.

As they lay in the darkness, Akira on the bed because Goro had practically begged him to _just sleep there, it’s really all right_ , the conversations leads itself one way or another to a book that Goro is reading.

“It’s called _The Stranger,_ ” Goro says. “It’s about… the meaninglessness of human life, essentially.” He reaches down to the floor and pulls it from his bag. The pages are dogeared.

Akira beckons for the book with his hand and Goro tosses it over. He flips through the pages quickly, eyes scanning a few lines, and then throws it back. “Read it to me,” he says, hoping to sound as serious as possible.

“Sorry?” Goro’s eyebrows shoot up so high they nearly fly off his face.

“I said, read it to me. Think of it as… I don’t know. Just think of it as something.” Akira sits up and pats the bed. “Turn the light on too.”

Goro sits up more and doesn’t move for a moment, bewilderment slapped across his face. After what appears to be some painful contemplation, he turns the light on and sits next to Akira, back against the wall, legs criss-cross like a child doing show-and-tell.

They fall asleep reading. Goro falls asleep first, mid sentence, which Akira didn’t know was possible. Akira falls asleep afterward while scrolling through the news on his phone. He thinks about Goro’s voice, not the news, and how it sounds like honey. It sounds so different from the way he normally talks, all rigid and purposeful; when it is just Akira and him, his voice is gentle and honest and the way it should be.

Akira woke up with his arm slung around Goro.

From there on—well.

They don’t bring it up to one another because there isn’t much to discuss about it. They both know it happened, that was undeniable. And they know why it happened, even if they don’t want to admit it.

But that’s all right—at least, it’s all right for a short while. They continue on interacting normally with one another, albeit sitting a little closer at times and letting their gazes linger a bit too long. The Phantom Thieves grow as the months fly by; Akira introduces Goro to each new member despite knowing they all dislike him for the things he says during television interviews.

It doesn’t matter to Akira, not really.

Fall approaches quickly. It is September, and then October, and then November, and then Goro joins the Phantom Thieves and everything unravels.

Akira learns of Goro’s plans to kill him through Futaba. It’s only slightly surprising. In the past few weeks, he became more quiet, face paler; he has made plenty excuses to not hang out with Akira—weak excuses, pathetic lies. He told Akira he had a dentist appointment, and then a doctor, and then dentist again, and then that he was sick, and so on.

Although, it didn’t necessarily seem like Goro was lying when he would say he was sick. When they saw one another, sometimes Goro would only sit there and clutch at his head, or stare at the walls and floors. He spoke less in general. Akira did too.

Once again, Akira did not understand. He felt seven years old, unable to understand why Goro moved away, unable to understand why he wanted to kill him, unable to understand anything.

One night in November they are laying in Akira’s bed, clinging to one another, because it doesn’t matter anymore. Goro’s head is buried against Akira’s chest; every now and then he inhales sharply like something is electrocuting him. His hands are bruised—they’re always bruised now, probably as a result of whatever it is he does these days. Who knows, right? Akira doesn’t like to think about it.

Despite that, though, Akira cannot ever bring himself to hate Goro. Whenever he looks him in the eye all he can see is a frightened boy watching an ant by the curb.

* * *

**the nucleus**

“You should take this,” Akira says the night before he and the Phantom Thieves send Sae Niijima her calling card.

He presses something made of yarn and leaves into Goro’s hand.

“In case you ever need it,” he whispers. “It’ll take you home.”

“Home,” Goro echoes.

* * *

**the atom**

Goro cries when he shoots Akira.

It appears that he does, anyway, with his hands all pathetically shaky and covered in false confidence. In another universe, one where Akira was not his childhood friend, perhaps this went down differently.

He does not apologize, though, or say anything smug and witty like he usually does. He says nothing at all.

Akira doesn’t say anything either. A few days later, when he is laying in his bed in the attic pretending to be dead, he considers texting Goro. Considers offering help. Considers asking why, considers apologizing.

He doesn’t, of course. That would ruin the plan. And that’s what everything is about. _The Plan._

In the silence, Akira asks his ceiling why things turned out this way. His ceiling does not answer.

Akira understands why his friends dislike Goro, rightfully so. Akira understands why Makoto isn’t sure about her career or life choices anymore, he understands why Futaba shut herself in for so long, he understands why Yusuke cannot find beauty in his paintings, he understands, understands. He listens to them; he has helped them grow and develop and free themselves.

And he understands Goro, somewhat. More than he had a few months, weeks ago. A few months ago he did not understand why Goro said some of the things he said or did some of the things he did. Ironically, once Akira learned he was going to be shot, things started making a lot more sense, in a fucked up sort of way.

The problem with Goro is that he has not healed by being around Akira. He has lost himself instead. And it is the absolute, complete opposite of what Akira wanted. His presence made Goro a jealous animal, a creature obsessed with his own loneliness, a vengeful monster.

In the weeks coming up to Shido’s palace’s infiltration, Akira does a lot of thinking, unfortunately. He spends wasteful periods of time staring up at the ceiling, decorated in tons of little glow-in-the-dark stars now, and thinks. He wonders how and why he was bound to the life he has now, and how and why Goro was bound to such a different one. Goro was the same as Akira when they were little—he didn’t hurt anyone. Neither of them hurt anyone; once Akira slapped another boy on the arm at school because he was insulting a girl nearby, but that was it, and that slap was justified. Goro threw things and broke things out of confusion but never hurt anyone.

It isn’t fair. He doesn’t understand.

One day Akira is walking to the train station, hood up, and he sees Goro there, leaning against a wall, talking on the phone. He’s clenching his free hand so tightly it looks like it could crush all the bones in his fingers.

Akira watches for a while. He wonders what Goro is doing—if he’s going to go kill someone, namely. How does Goro spend his time, now, thinking that Akira—his only childhood friend—is dead, and dead by his own hands? Does he eat dinner the same as he had before? Does he think about the terrifying permanence of death and all the ghosts and blood weighing on his shoulders?

From his bag, Morgana quietly tells him to walk away.

They do see each other again, inevitably, because that’s how Fate works. They see each other in a musty engine room on a ship floating through corpse water. Corpse water. A sea of filthy reds and browns. Akira can smell it, even from inside of the ship.

It’s a smell he will never forget. Death. It is unlike the musty smell of Kamoshida’s palace, unlike the smell of carpets and cigarettes in Sae’s palace.

Never mind the smell of death, though. Though Akira may never forget it, it is nothing compared to the _fear_ he felt when that stupid wall fell down, nothing compared to seeing Goro crumpled into a pathetic pile of limbs on the curb, leaves and yarn dangling from his fingers.

How fitting. It’s always the curb.

And it is certainly nothing compared to the nausea he feels when he calls Sojiro and begs _please come pick us up, right now, it’s an emergency_ in a frantic voice he has never used before while his friends make sure someone they dislike doesn’t die in front of a government building.

It is all too funny, the way life works. There are too many coincidences, not enough miracles, too many lies, not enough love. Too much of everything, not enough of nothing.

Akira looks back at the blood smear on the ground and pretends it isn’t anything.

After they take Goro to Takemi, who is the most gracious person on god’s green earth, Akira retreats to his attic with Morgana and Ann and Yusuke. Everyone else _wants to go home, gotta get sleep._ And that’s perfectly normal for them to want to do. Akira doesn’t blame them, he’s tired too, wants to sleep too, wants to shut the lights off in his brain at least for a few hours.

But Ann and Yusuke—really, they must be angels reincarnated.

They sit with him on the bed, Yusuke to his left and Ann to his right, and hold him and let him cry for Goro, for himself, for Futaba, for Haru and Makoto and Ryuji and everyone else that he has met. It is utterly embarrassing. Akira doesn’t cry in front of people because he is the _leader_ , he is setting the example.

He lets himself do it this time, though. He makes it an exception. Nobody ever takes care of Akira; he is always the one taking care of others. So when Ann helps him lay down and pulls the blankets over his chin a very unsettling feeling washes over him, but it vanishes when the sleeping pill he took begins to work.

Akira wonders what he could have done to make things different, or if it was even possible to do so.

* * *

**the ion**

He doesn’t see Goro for a while, of course, because he is recovering and being watched by Takemi to make sure he doesn’t kill himself and so on. Instead Akira spends most of his time with Futaba, sometimes Yusuke, because the two of them are so outlandish and good hearted that it’s grounding in an unexplainable way.

At the same time, Akira continues to not-go-to-school, even though his status of being “dead” certainly has the opportunity of being compromised just by the strange nature of everything. He and Makoto text each other one night, trying to decide on the best way to send Shido his calling card. The conversation inevitably turns into one about Goro and what they should “do with him.”

Akira hates that Makoto phrases it that way but doesn’t say anything.

At a meeting the next day, he brings this issue up with everyone else, and Ann blessedly suggests that he come along with them to defeat Shido. There is silence at the suggestion for a good ten seconds until Morgana says, “I think it’s a great idea.”

Arguments ensue. Ryuji points out that it might upset Goro, Haru points out that he can’t be trusted, Makoto points out that he might end up killing Shido. Akira doesn’t care if he kills Shido. Akira wants all this ridiculousness to be over, wants to be a teenager again.

Ryuji had said something he didn’t consider before, though. Bringing Goro along to Shido’s palace may certainly upset him all over again. And they’re running out of time—if Takemi still deems him “a threat to himself and others” by the end of the week, they really have no choice but to go in without him.

Ironically, the next day Goro and Takemi step into Leblanc. Takemi looks great, Goro does not. His hair has been cut a bit shorter and he’s trembling.

From the kitchen, Sojiro packs the knives away into a cupboard.

Akira takes him upstairs and sits him on the bed, watches him grab a pillow and hold it around his chest like some frightened schoolboy.

Which is, well.

“Nothing you could have done would have changed anything,” Goro mumbles, chin pressed against the pillow. “So if you’ve been feeling guilty, don’t.”

“How can I just suddenly not feel guilty, Goro?”

“I know you can’t, it’s just wishful thinking. I’m not an idiot,” he says, looking at the floor.

Akira begs to differ. He doesn’t say this, of course.

“You could have—offered me help, whatever, and I would have denied that I needed it. Nothing would change.” Pause. “I thought I was binded to a fate. To get back at Shido, and then to die. That’s all I saw. That was the only possibility. So many dead people were—and still are—watching me, and I knew I couldn’t live with all of them latched to my back.”  

“I’m sorry,” Akira says stupidly.

A moment of silence passes before Goro whispers, “I’m sorry too.”

Wind blows in through the window, cold and jarring and annoying. The room is impossibly stuck in time; Morgana is nowhere in sight, which makes it all the more difficult to unstuck. If Morgana were here he could at least say something dumb and diffuse the tension.

“We’re taking a nap,” Akira decides, sitting on the bed and pulling Goro down next to him. He yanks the pillow from his arms and puts it back at the head of the bed. “I’m tired and cold.”

“I’m tired and cold too,” Goro says, though it seems more like he is repeating words rather than speaking his actual thoughts. That’s all right, though.

“Your feet are freezing,” he mumbles against Akira’s neck.

* * *

**the isotope**

It didn’t take much convincing for Goro to agree to come to Shido’s palace, not really. Akira placed a cup of coffee with far too much sugar in it in front of him and talked to him for a good three minutes before Goro agreed to it. He promises (emptily) that he will not kill Shido. Akira tells him that _even if you do, it’s fine, to me._

When they go to the palace, Goro does not kill Shido. Nobody does. It all happens in a transfixed blur; the battle occurs between four million strings and quantum universes.

“You’ll be a scandal in every timeline you exist in,” Shido sneers. “You’ll be unwanted no matter what the outcome of this is.”

Goro shoots a kouagon at him. Akira can’t really see what’s happening, his vision is bleary and irritated from lack of sleep and coherent thought.

“What’s the point of living when nobody loves you?” Shido asks. “It’s not a trick question. There isn’t a point.”

Akira wishes Shido would die. He imagines him dying in a million different ways. He imagines his eyes exploding the way Haru’s father’s had, and makes a mental note to find a therapist.

“Don’t listen to what he’s saying, Akechi,” Ryuji says from some far off place. “He’s just tryin’a get you angry.”

“You think that’s my main goal here—to make him angry?” Shido laughs, and it sounds like a big bronze gong. “It’s so much more than that. I want him out of my life. His existence is troubling for me; he’s nothing more than a roadblock I figured out how to use as an advantage. If he dropped dead now, I wouldn’t—”

Akira doesn’t hear the rest, because instead he is watching Haru walk up behind Goro and place her hands on his ears. “You don’t need to hear this,” she says, soft and pained.

Ryuji bashes Shido with one swing and he goes down.

* * *

**the continuous spectrum**

A great deal of time passes.

Akira goes to jail, willingly, somewhat. He sits in this jail surrounded by these prisoners that have killed and mauled and hurt people and stares at the wall and draws invisible things on his thighs with his fingers. He writes his friends’ names, writes out his thoughts.

It reminds Akira of when Goro read _The Stranger_ to him. The main character of the novel spent a long, long while in jail and to keep himself busy, he attempted to go over every single memory he had ever made. Being in jail gives a person a lot of time to do that. It’s supposed to be a time of reflection, or some bullshit—and so Akira reflects on all the happy things he has ever done and doesn’t reflect on the sad ones.

Because Akira wants to be happy.

Deserves to be happy, of course. He knows this. In a way, he is like Goro, because they are both struggling to find happiness and stable connection in the aftermath of everything, but in another way, he isn’t, because Goro doesn’t think he deserves to be happy. In the few days after they had stolen Shido’s heart, Goro would walk around and mumble things about the dead watching him. He would wake up thrashing and shouting incomprehensible things and Akira would hold his arms firm and tell him stories about things that perhaps didn’t matter.

And Goro would do the same for Akira. He’d pet his hair and tell him _it won’t be like this forever, you’re really brave, you’ve done so much for so many people—_

That’s one of the memories Akira thinks about, in his cold little cell that is not so unlike the Velvet Room.

Sometimes, he does forget the happy things, inevitably. He misses Morgana a lot, misses his god awful witty comments and shouting and complaining. He misses Makoto bossing him around out of kindness, misses Ryuji saying things he shouldn’t, misses Yusuke dragging him around Shibuya, misses Ann’s bad acting and Futaba’s jokes and Haru’s gardening and Goro’s passive aggressiveness. He misses—everyone.

All bad things come to an end, he knows.

But until this particularly terrible bad thing ends, all he can do is continue to wait and go over things in his brain.

They let him read books eventually, and so Akira reads books. He reads a lot: _No Longer Human, The Setting Sun, The Handmaid’s Tale,_ so on. It reminds him of sitting on the subway and thumbing through terrible magazines and library books that smelled like dust.

He feels a bit lonely. A lot lonely. It is becoming increasingly difficult to only dwell on happy things when there is so much emptiness around him swallowing him whole.

 _This will be worth it,_ he tells himself. _Somehow._

It is worth it, in the end, because everything is worth it in the end in most circumstances.

On the day he returns home, he sleeps for a while. On his bed is a little bag of marbles and a note that says _I kept them from when you gave them to me and wanted to return them. -AG._ Akira hangs the bag up from a hook at his desk and falls asleep to the sound of the leaves brushing against one another outside.

He wakes up and remembers it is Valentine’s day, which is quite the funny joke. There isn’t anything for him to do today, so he stays in his pajamas and heads downstairs, rubbing at his eyes in hopes of getting rid of the dark circles. Akira’s head hurts from sleeping so deeply, which he didn’t know was something that was possible.

There is nothing more that he wants right now than coffee. He came to terms with the fact that he has a caffeine addiction in jail, which is a bit of a funny thing to realize under those conditions but, well.

When he steps into the cafe, his eyes widen and he forgets about the coffee. Sojiro says something, but Akira doesn’t hear it.

Goro is waiting for him on his usual stool. He immediately stands at the first sight of Akira, fists clenched; he isn’t wearing gloves. His face is a little healthier, eyes are a little brighter, and he’s wearing clothes that don’t make him look like an adult anymore.

They stare at one another for an eternity of a second. It’s a good thing there aren’t any customers, because this is quite the odd scene to behold in retrospect.

“I waited for you,” Goro says finally. “Welcome home.”

Akira kisses him on the mouth and Sojiro’s head nearly falls off.

**Author's Note:**

> for reference, akira gave goro a goho-m.
> 
> thank you for reading! comments kudos etc appreciated.!
> 
> also.. i talk more about p5 on my twitter @ bloomedvillain


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